Relationship of genetic diversity metrics to density in two imperiled Canadian River fishes, Arkansas River Shiner and Plains Minnow.

Authors: Sanchez, Alyssa V*, Osborne, Megan, Gilbert, Eliza

Year: 2015 (xlvii)

Abstract

Enter abstract text (English); Dewatering, fragmentation and associated habitat change of rivers in the Great Plains of North America have substantially altered stream fish communities over the past 50 years. Recent broad scale analysis demonstrated that these factors act together to cause declines, particularly in pelagic spawning species. Two members of this guild were the focus of this study, Arkansas River Shiner and Plains Minnow. We generated a genetic monitoring time series for Arkansas River Shiner spanning 6 years and collected baseline genetic data for Plains Minnow in the Canadian River. This data was used to assess temporal trends in genetic diversity and genetic effective population size. We also paired genetic effective size and abundance estimates (catch-per-unit-effort [CPUE]) to assess the relationship between these different metrics of population status. Genetic effective population size was small for Arkansas River Shiner but did not change significantly over the time series. For Plains Minnow metrics of genetic diversity were lower than elsewhere in its native range.